Euphoria
by lavenderjacquard
Summary: The only way to truly love someone was to kill them.
1. Chapter 1

He didn't know it at the time, he knew now, but Douma fell in love with the butterfly swordswoman the moment she drew her blade and punctured his left eye.

That was of no concern, the rainbow eye would bloom again. Instead he was stunned by her speed and even more by her wits when he felt the stinging poison seep into his skin. She was clever, more so than any other woman he'd eaten over hundreds of years, tens of thousands of them. Not to mention, more beautiful. She was exquisite, fine boned and luminescent, eyes a deep plum like the sweetest of wines his worshippers served him. Douma sipped the wine and their blood and barely registered the taste, but one look into her eyes made his mouth water. He was parched, desperate to know her taste, as if he hadn't drank blood in centuries.

"I'm certainly not the first to tell you today," Douma said, "but you are the most beautiful woman I've ever seen."

She spat venom back at him.

"You make me want to vomit," she said, ugly words from velvet lips.

Douma laughed at her audacity, full-throated and deep, and smiled at her scowl. It would have marred an ordinary woman's face, but on hers it was charming.

She darted towards him and though her agility was breathtaking she was too small and delicate to harm him. A butterfly's wings could not create a typhoon. Soon he could hear the blood sloshing in her lungs, reminding him of fragrant tea in a porcelain cup.

She was so pitiful, and she was trying so hard; Douma could see the hatred simmering off her skin. Soon he was going to make her happy, so happy, blissful. He would make her want to be devoured, and freeze those little paper lungs of hers and make her suck in her last rattling breath pressed against his chest.

Douma opened his fan and peered at the panting swordswoman, admiring the soft moans escaping from her mouth. He pressed the sharp edge of the fan against his lip to taste his own sour blood, and imagined hers would taste like honey.

"Die with me. I promise I am the only man who could satisfy you every day for the rest of eternity," he said.

The woman glared at him, heat burning in her violet eyes. Scarlet blood dripped from her mouth, smeared over her pale skin; compared to the painted oirans he favored, she was magnificent while they were flat and sallow.

"And feel nothing like you? You're insane," she said, the words rattling like cicadas in her chest.

That was wrong. Douma felt plenty of things. He felt joy when he swallowed a woman and took away her pain and replaced it with bliss. If that was not joy, than what was? Tears dripped down his face at the thought of the suffering he'd inflicted upon the swordswoman, and his breath hitched imagining the hollow pain she felt surviving without her sister. Such divine sorrow!

The woman surged towards him again and Douma had no choice but to cut her wings, dismayed to mar her beauty though ready to catch her when she fell. But she was cunning, and she seized the opportunity to impale his chest with her needle of a sword. So brave, but so futile! Didn't she see that he felt no pain and she was running straight into his loving arms? Clearly she was not stupid; it was obvious she wanted her throat crushed in his hands, to feel his fangs sink into her flesh. Douma giggled, ecstatic.

He grasped her sword, slashing his fingers to ribbons, and pulled the butterfly into his embrace. Douma desperately held onto every cell of hers with both arms as she fought his grip, thrashing and screaming. His tears ran freely, moved once again by the beauty of human despair that he would never experience. He was sorry to see that she was suffering, he was sorry to see them all suffer, but they all had such different and fascinating answers to what the pain of death felt like!

The butterfly was caught in his lacquer cage, and the jagged stubs of her wings would soon stop vibrating. Then he would absorb her and she would be enraptured by his love, tying the two of them together forever. She would never feel lonely again.

"Please, tell me, what is your name?" Douma whispered into her ear, his lips on the delicate sculpture of her ear.

"Never-" she started, and Douma squeezed her tighter and pressed her further inside him. She was wheezing, her thin ribs snapping like icicles. The heat of her body and the floral scent of her blood was dizzying; not even the rays of the sun on his face were so warm. Douma knew this was closer to heaven than whatever those feeble priests in temples crawled towards; he thought that if there was still human blood running through his veins he might even be hard.

And then she was gone, the taste of her blood fading from his tongue. Douma licked the cold pearl of her hair ornament for any last drop of her, but there was nothing. Once the pillars were dead and his job was completed, Douma would see her again, the jewel amongst his collection of frozen women.

The tears on his cheeks had just dried when the others came, the poor imitation of the butterfly and the swine, and for a moment he thought they had come to take his prize away. He drove his fingers into the soft cavity of his chest to make sure she was still there and caressed her smooth skin; already, the cuts on her face were healing inside him. What a foolish creature, of course it was better to live with him and remain beautiful forever.

But once the intruders were nearly dead Douma felt something peculiar, when the already-healed eye she'd impaled dropped out of its socket. He knew it was not pain, despite never experiencing it before, but suddenly he was hollow, more empty than he usually felt. His skin flaked and bones liquified until there was nothing left but his severed disintegrating head, and then he realized it was poison from that accursed flower, the one Muzan had warned him about.

Wisteria. It could only be from her, the butterfly, and not just from her sword but from her body. Her entire body was seeped in wisteria, and a glutton like him knew that it would take years to accumulate that much of it, like it took him decades to gather up the nectar of pretty women.

And she'd done it all for him! Years and years of consuming the bitter flower, just for him! That meant she loved him, she truly did, because the only way to really love someone was to kill them. It was how his mother had loved his father. No one else had loved him the same way; the worshippers thought love was laying alms at his feet and begging for his mercy. Douma would trade them all, slaughter them all, and endure the sour and mealy taste of the men if it meant he could have known her sooner.

His head crashed to the floor, a consequence of gravity, but he felt weightless. Nothing mattered anymore, not the other demons, not Muzan, nothing except for one final question.

"What was her name?" he asked the girl.

"Shinobu, you piece of shit," she said, and spat on his face.

And then he knew there was a god, because he'd given Douma those syllables as the last thing he heard before he died.

When Douma awoke, he floated in an abyss of deep violet. No, not floating; someone was holding his head. He'd known enough women to realize that the soft palm was feminine. And after hundreds of years of ice and frost he finally felt a trickle of warmth at the base of his neck, from her slender fingers and the satisfied smile on her face.

"You finally died? Lovely," Shinobu said.

Douma returned the smile.

"Oh, Shinobu, I really did mean that you are the most beautiful woman I've ever seen."

"Shut up. I've wanted to kill you for a long time," she said.

The smile dropped from his face and he stared at her as if he'd just seen the sun rise for the first time.

"Is something wrong?" she asked.

Something was indeed wrong. All Douma felt was love, buzzing behind his eyes and in his mouth and at the edge of his scalp. It was overwhelming, inescapable, and unfamiliar, but intoxicating. He wanted to drown in it. Now he was the one trapped in her lacquer cage, and he had no desire to escape. If this was Hell, then maybe he'd have started believing a long time ago.

"Shinobu, will you take me to Hell with you?"

"I'll kick your fucking head to Hell."

Douma was euphoric. Shinobu loved him too.


	2. Chapter 2

Shinobu was the only human in the violet abyss, but she wasn't alone.

Thousands of butterflies danced at her feet, at her hands, at the top of her head. Their tiny legs tickled her cheekbones, and when she reached out one hand a few landed on her palm. Others flew in meandering circles, unbothered, their purple wings fluttering in the air like petals from wisteria trees.

For the first time in years, Shinobu's heart was quiet. She felt it pulsing in her chest, soft and regular, free from the gripping terror crushing it hours earlier.

Suddenly the butterflies in her palm scattered, and in their place something else materialized. She felt warm, sticky blood pool in her hand, and then blonde hair sprouted in twisting vines and the blood congealed into rainbow eyes. Pale skin wrapped the hair and eyes into a clear face, and then split into a wide smile with sharp teeth.

Shinobu felt no fear. She knew she was safe.

"You finally died? Lovely," she said. An edge of pride crept into her voice and she made no effort to hide it. The wisteria that coursed through her body was effective, and Kanao performed brilliantly. Her tsuguko surpassed her. Though Shinobu knew she would never watch Kanao grow even stronger, or see the day she flipped her coin for the last time, it was good enough.

"I knew death could never keep us apart," Douma said.

His eyes were wide, bright, somehow gleaming despite the lack of light. The numbers carved into his irises were no longer intimidating, and now that she could peer right into them, she found that they were flat. They were merely rainbow disks.

Shinobu knew as soon as she saw him gorging on the flesh on young women that she'd found him, the demon who slaughtered Kanae and the point to which all her suffering converged. She didn't need to see his face, because she knew from the jarring colors: the drops of crimson oozing down hair like pale beaten gold, the sickly sweet rainbow eyes.

"The demon is beautiful but cold, like stone," Kanae had said as she lay in Shinobu's arms, blood gurgling in her lungs. "His eyes are brilliant rainbows but there's nothing inside them." The words came out in a hoarse whisper, and then a ragged breath and nothing else.

It was unfair, even cruel, that Kanae died that way and this demon was perfectly coherent and seemingly pleased with himself despite his lack of a body.

"Oh, Shinobu, I really did mean that you are the most beautiful woman I've ever seen." His smile this time was different, not the unctuous and condescending one from before, but guileless. It seemed almost sincere. A crackling rush of anger shot down her spine.

"Shut up. I've wanted to kill you for a long time," she spat.

"Have you? I think I've been waiting at least a hundred years to meet you."

The years she'd endured were paltry in comparison, but so much fuller, bursting with rage. They were consuming, soaked with loathing and sorrow and the bitter taste of wisteria. She realized years ago that nearly every waking moment was devoted to him, to this monster, instead of her kind and compassionate sister. That didn't stop her obsessive thoughts, but added a heavy layer of guilt.

The hatred was burning at her again, incinerating the wisteria left in her veins, and the butterflies vanished. She concentrated on stilling her body, tensing every muscle until she was motionless. She noticed too late that her fingers clenched Douma's neck.

"Don't be angry, Shinobu! This is a good thing. We're going to be together, just the two of us, forever!"

Rage bubbled out of control, more than she could stop, and Shinobu's fingernails dug into his skin. "I'd rather die again than spend another minute with you."

Douma laughed. "But we're so similar, you and me!"

Her fingers burrowed further into his flesh, to her knuckles. "There's nothing even remotely similar about the two of us."

"Really? But we're both shiny facades hiding our true disgusting selves."

Shinobu hissed. How dare he compare the two of them, claim they were similar when they were different as night and day, as air and earth?

"There's nothing inside you. All you have is that facade. You're just a worm, wriggling in the dirt waiting for someone to step on you."

"Aren't butterflies just worms with wings?"

She twisted her fingers deeper into his neck, severing the veins with her nails.

"I can feel that!" Douma laughed in amazement. "Is this what hands are supposed to feel like?"

Shinobu blinked. "What do you mean, supposed to feel?"

"Never felt a thing in my life! Not even when I was human. People touched me and there's just nothing. Until now, that is," he said.

Shinobu forced herself to breathe, to relax, to ease her tense muscles. He was dead, they were both dead, there was no reason to be angry. So then why did she want to scream?

"Shinobu, you don't have to keep that mask on. I know you have hatred inside you, more than some of the Upper Moons. I know because I can feel it now."

More than an Upper Moon? How was that possible? They were the very embodiment of hatred, of violence, of every horrible human emotion that she worked so hard to suppress. She kept hers as an undercurrent to her subconscious while they brought theirs to the surface to run rampant. If she had done the same, could she be strong too?

She blinked again and found herself staring at Douma, now really looking, searching for whatever she'd missed before, something that proved they were the same. He gazed back at her, and his eyes softened and dimmed. The smile faltered, and instead he looked at her in awe, the same way she looked at the other Pillars who carved up demons and severed heads while she could only watch.

"Is something wrong?" Shinobu asked, and wondered the same of herself.

"I feel it. There is something inside me now. It's like my empty, non-existent heart just started to beat. Is this that 'love' thing? Please, Shinobu, will you take me to Hell with you?"

"I'll kick your fucking head to Hell."

He laughed. "If it means you'll love me too, then I'll take it."

Shinobu shuddered. "But why would you ever love me?"

"Because you're so clever and strong," he said.

No one had ever said that to her before. Clever, sure, but strong? She wasn't strong, nowhere near that. She was the only Pillar who couldn't hack a demon to pieces, didn't he know that? And if she were really strong, wouldn't she have defeated him?

But she did defeat him, she realized. With help, of course, and even though she exchanged her life for his own, it was better for them to die together than both live.

Kanae often said that one day humans and demons could be friends, and Shinobu rolled her eyes every time, and never believed it when she repeated the line herself. But now she saw that she didn't need to hate demons, didn't need to drown in her hatred for Douma anymore. She'd watched too many slayers initially brimming with love for their comrades descend into madness and let their hatred for demons consume them, so much so that they forgot who they were fighting for in the first place. That had been her, but no longer.

And if love could so easily turn to hatred, then could hatred blossom into love?

Shinobu dropped her hand but kept her fingers latched into Douma's neck, and she walked forward into the abyss, towards the pinprick of light she hadn't seen earlier. She felt Douma's skin graze her leg, and his mouth crack into a wide grin.

"I knew you'd love me," Douma said.

"Maybe I can, once you atone for your sins," she responded.

"I'll do anything, Shinobu."


End file.
